Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sy Borg]

Yes, solipsism. It cannot be disproved and, I suppose, one could decide to believe that the only reality is one’s own mind, and one could then, I guess, go through the motions of living in an unreal universe. But it would be a hard act to sustain. And why bother?

I think of philosophy as a tool that helps us think clearly and logically about phenomena. It’s a way of focussing the mind on a particular question, of clarifying what it is we are asking, and perhaps seeing what we would need to know in order to finally answer a question. And it might even suggest ways of empirically testing ideas, but here it starts merging with science.

If there were odds, I might back the simulation hypothesis before total solipsism :)

I don't differentiate science and philosophy, as per your last sentence. To me, it all comes under the heading of "Trying to find out what's going on". Any and all tools in that endeavour are welcome to me. If one is professional, then once must specialise and at least take the siloing somewhat to operate within budget.

Siloing is a powerful tool for unearthing details but it must be discarded when trying to understand the dynamics of what is happening. Science and philosophy budgets may be separate, but the phenomena they examine is not.

[Sculptor1]

It seems to me that at one time no such strict distinction could be made of science and philosophy.
Science was the aim of philosophy, "knowledge". And what we now know as SCIENCE is what was once called that branch of philosophy called "Natural Philosophy".
When the strict divisions occurred can pronably be traced to the medieval scholasticism. The object of science was mostly about simply accepting what Aristotle has said taken as "gospel"revered and inspired writings which gave the christians a way of reaching their authority well before the time of christ. God was to be know through the "Book of Nature", and the picture painted of nature, warts and all, including the geocentric hypothesis, of Aristotle became canon.
When the likes of Galileo and Newton; Brahe and Bruno had other ideas, science began to divide from other pursuits.
THis division continues when science started to be more practical. With this usefulness came a greater need to devote more time to study of dynamics, maths, and the understandin of the mechanics of the world so that more esoteric thoughts of metaphysical propositions were sidelined.
Snobbery of the "true thinker" against the guy who has to get his hand dirty with grime under the fingernails creates further division.